Middle School Science

Her life is a shadow of a life. Her future is not her own to fashion. Her family is a tangle of secrets. She cannot read. She cannot write. But she is Parastrata Ava, the Captain's eldest daughter, the so girl of a long-range crewe - her obligations are grave and many. And when she makes a mistake, in a fragrant orchard of lemons, the consequences are deadly. There are some who would say, "there but for the Mercies go I". There are some who would say Parastrata Ava is just a silly earthstruck girl who got what was coming to her.

Don't be fooled by his friendly smile, his perfect manners, or his shiny red apple. Student council president Howard Mergler is actually a sinister bug-monster in disguise - and he's summoning swarms of roaches, wasps, fleas, and head lice into the corridors of Lovecraft Middle School! Twelve-year-old Robert Arthur is the only student who can stop him - but he'll need help from his best friends: the school bully, the school ghost, and an extremely courageous two-headed rat.

This action-packed sequel finds middle school band geeks Dev, Isaiah, Tessa, Maeve, and Lewis trapped in a parallel version of Earth as they fight to save their families—and the entire rest of the multiverse—from the villainous Empyrean One. Far from home and running out of options, it will take everything they have to get back to Earth and preserve humanity once and for all. The startling revelation that they are their own worst enemies forces a painful decision: Will they forsake the lives they once knew for an uncertain future?

Know that one of you will not return… These are the ominous words spoken by the Oracle of Atlantis as it sends the intrepid Samantha and her teenage crew on their toughest challenge yet: relive the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh. Devising an ingenious method for working out where to head to follow in the footsteps of the Sumerian antihero, they face a series of challenges, each of which hides a lesson. Do they copy Gilgamesh or learn from his mistakes? For learn they must to collect the seven holy keys that will lead them to a prize as yet unknown. Pushed to the limits of their endurance ...

Living in the luxurious Arcanum building - with its interior balconies perfect for playing tag, an elevator like an iron birdcage, and quirky neighbours behind every apartment door - has always been fun and games for twelve-year-old Minerva Keen...until her neighbours start getting poisoned. Anyone could be next, and everyone is a suspect, including Minerva herself. To clear her name and help the police crack the case, Minerva starts her own detective club.

Just how does a robot gain a soul? Cletus, an AI consciousness, has a bug in its programming that leads it to hear the voice of a young man, the ghost of Boone Richards. In exchange for a soul, Boone tasks Cletus with a mission that threatens to upend the carefully planned settlement of Maior Pales by humans. As the arrival of the humans on Maior Pales looms, Cletus is faced with a moral dilemma. A descendant of the family who killed Boone has gathered a gang of outlaws to disrupt the settlement, and Boone's sister Delphine is speaking out against the violence. Cletus must decide whether to...

A hero will rise . . . Maks comes home to Appian for Solstice break, only to find the village in turmoil–poachers have struck the last standing forest on his planet. Maks jumps in to help, fighting age-old customs and flouting conventions that try to hold him hostage. He soon realizes that the world is even more complex than he thought, and standing up for the truth is tougher when it means going against your best friend. A standalone novella from the world of The Lightbound Saga.